Ah, what a cute little story! I was in love with it from the moment my friend told me about it. It's been YEARS since I last read a book where the plot was centered around animals. I suppose once you get older, you tend to veer off animal characters and go towards human characters. It's all about wanting to grow up and see more of life through someone else eyes. You can't really get that through animals... or can you? Now that I am older, I wanted to go back to the type of books I used to read as a child... that is, main characters being animals. Therefore. when my friend mentioned this book to me, I ran to the library and picked myself up a copy. And I was not disappointed. This book is absolutely lovely. The story was so exciting, the writing is phenomenal, and the characters are so smexy! X3 Seriously though, what made this book so wonderful were the characters! I am in love with so many of them, I'm not even sure if I can name them all! (And there are a lot of characters.) I was sucked into the book as soon as I started reading it. In fact, I would love to continue with this amazing series now that I know the premise and what the world is like!

Brain Jacques (may he rest in peace) did a fantastic job creating an entirely new world from scratch and building it up to as epic as it turned out. For this to be his first novel of the Redwall series, it turned out really well! The flow of language he displays on his pages are very alluring. Do you know what it feels like to walk into your favorite donut shop and see all the vast amount of flavors on the shelves with milkshakes of every kind just for the grabbing whilst the price of it all being free? Yeah, that's what it felt like for me. I was ecstatic going into this world and seeing what an amazing writer Jacques turned out to be. The main plot of a war breaking out and then going on an adventure that could either save your life and the lives of those you hold most dear or destroy everything was something very nostalgic to me. As a child, I used to imagine going on an adventure with my brothers of some kind to battle evil monsters and discover ancient weapons all the time! Unfortunately, most of these adventures were of my brothers and me going to Target and seeing if they had a certain type of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards... however, reading this book, I felt like I was on an epic adventure all over again! The only thing I felt Jacques needed to work on a bit more was the pacing. At times, I felt it went a bit too slow. For example, there were parts in the book where when looking for the sword, the characters backtracked a lot. I suppose that was the intention of the book seeing as how one of the main focuses was to locate Martin the Warriors ancient sword. However, I just felt it slowed down the book considerably. Other than that, the book was amazing. Besides, it is the first book of a series. There's no way that it could keep going at an action-packed pace seeing as how it had to build the world from the ground up. You did an amazing job, Brian Jacques. Your books will forever remain in the hearts of all those who read them! ^_^

Oh, but I'm not done with the review! No sir! I must talk about the characters! Let's start with the two main ones! Matthias! He was an adorable little mouse and such a great hero! He was by no means perfect. He's young and he has his flaws: temper! That little mouse used to snap almost as quickly as me (but not quite~ XD). But despite his temper, he was always loyal, fought for what he believed to be right, and never acted cowardly... unless it was in false. He had great relationships with all the other characters. Those of Methuselah, Basil Stag Hare, Constance, and Warbeak were among my favorites! (More on them later.) He had a cute little crush with Cornflower, a sweet little mouse who took care of the majority at Redwall Abbey, which made me questioned whether I was a furry or not... but it turns out I'm not. (What about when you were young and had a crush on Sonic?) ...that was different... (How so?) He doesn't have fur! (But he's still an animal.) ...shut up! Anyway, Matthias was a great hero and I would love to read more about his affairs in future novels. Next! Cluny the Scourge. Our villain. What a disgusting, vile, vulgar, cowardly rat he turned out to be... and I love him for it! As villains go, he was amazing. He seemed a bit single-minded at first but as time goes on, you realize that it's part of who he is and there are parts where you see that, even though he's a schmuck, he has his own fears and worries, too. He has a depth to him that... is very hard to explain but it is there. I loved him as our antagonist. He gave Matthias a run for his money and put him through a lot of hell. Ugh! What a nuisance! Love! XD

Side characters, ahoy! Let's talk about Constance first. She's a badger that can kick ass... tell me that's not awesome! As soon as I read the first scene with her, I was in love! Any female, be it human or not, that can make anyone shit pickles is awesome in my book! Everything she did made me scream out, "You. Are. Kickass. Love. You." (It's true... really did. XD) The next awesome female was the sparrow, Warbeak. Now there's a bird with spunk! She first appears as all "ROAR! I EAT YOU FOR BREAKFAST!" And... she remains that way throughout the entire book! XD She has the best relationship with Matthias, I think. If she was a mouse, I would have chosen her for Matthias than Cornflower. (No offense to her. It's just... she only heals... and feed people... and she's not in the book enough for me to be absolutely in love with her.) In short, Warbeak and Constance need to get together and beat the crap out of people. XD Basil Stag Hare was my second favorite character! He was so bouncy, fun, loony, and weird... just how I like them! He made everything light and fun. He had the best sense of humor I have ever seen in a book in a long time. Also, he's a fighter! (Did I mention how much I love fighters?) He made me crack up whenever he opened his mouth! (He reminded me a bit of Zack sometimes... the resemblance is astounding! X3) LOVE THAT RABBIT!!! Last character I want to talk about is Methuselah. He is my absolute favorite. He's not a fighter, though. He's a scholar. Intelligent to boot! He knows everything there is to know about Redwall and its surrounding areas. I'll admit, I came to like him a whole lot more when I found out he had a gift for languages. (Language buff extraordinaire at your service!!!) Though, that's not the only thing that makes me love him. He's also kind, sweet, gentle, wise, exciting (even if he is old), and charming. He was there for Matthias to help him find the sword and he encouraged him whenever there was an obstacle in his way. He went through a lot in this book and it makes my heart race. I won't say what happens. Spoilers? I don't do spoilers! Let's just say I love him a lot.

There are so many other characters in this book but I can't talk about them all. I feel that I have rambled enough as it is. Just read the book and see for yourself. It really is an amazing book, especially for those looking to revisit their childhoods. It's full of adventure, comedy, history (of Redwall Abbey), and the characters are just so much fun to read about. The only thing I warn you of is the pacing. As I've said above, it can seem quite slow at times. But I urge you to continue to read it for it becomes the truly epic adventure it promises to be. Besides, the characters are animals, for God's sake! Don't you like fluffy animals!? I know I do! I'm going to make this series my "Go-To" series. Whenever I read a crappy book, I'm going to read the next one of this book to make myself feel better. That way... I won't feel like my brain turned into mush. -_-" Well, that's all for me today! I really hope you check this book out and, if you like it, you check out all the other ones. (There's like... twenty.) This is suck a cute series and I think it deserves to be read at least once! (More if possible!) ^_^